THE Jamaica Cattle Breeders Society, in collaboration with the Jamaica Livestock Association, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC), will stage the annual Minard Livestock Show and Beef Festival tomorrow.

This event, which is scheduled to take place on the grounds of the Minard Estates in Brown’s Town, St Ann, will be held under the theme, ‘Exploiting the Potential of our Local Livestock’.

“The aim of the show is to create an awareness of the importance of the livestock industry towards food security, restoring confidence in the industry and improving the competitive marketing position of locally produced livestock and livestock products,” one of the coordinators for the events, Vivian Kildare, told JIS News.

He explained that the activities for the day were designed to showcase important aspects of the livestock industry, as well as attract and stimulate young people to make a contribution to the development and expansion of the industry.

“Most of society’s young people seem not to be interested in agriculture or the agricultural enterprise, so the activities will be of such that young people will be able to access information and learn more about the sector. We have invited some 200 schools and we would like the students to come and see what we are doing,” he said.

Kildare said the events would include livestock displays, cattle and goat judging competitions, calf scramble, schools essay competition and schools art and craft competition.

“A new competition has been included for 2005 – the ‘Fruit and Vegetable Critter Competition’ -whereby students will use plant material to depict an educational display,” he said, adding that there would also be a cattle auction for persons who are interested in purchasing cattle.

He is appealing to members of the public to come out and support the beef farmers in the parish, and contribute to the development of the livestock industry.